The Dawnvel Druids by - (summer beach reads TXT) 📖

Chapter Three- Murder most Foul

He must’ve eventually drifted off to sleep, as Bobby awoke to flashing blue lights directly outside his window. He fought frantically with his duvet, ripping it aside and pressing his face to the glass. He half expected blue ghostly monsters had returned instead of red, but it was three police cars instead.

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They’d parked halfway up the field outside, and a crowd of teachers and students surrounded them. An ambulance stood on the other side of the cars, whilst men loaded a stretcher into the back of it.

He wondered what the hell was going on now. It looked like a body they’d loaded into the ambulance.

The student’s faces went from eager and curious, to pale and panicked as a ripple of gossip went through them. A few burst into tears and many more pulled out their phones. One boy got scolded for trying to snap a picture of the ambulance before its doors slammed shut.

His bedroom door burst open and Bobby jumped out of his skin, yelling in surprise.

“Bit jumpy, aren’t you?” The newcomer looked at him in distaste, holding a key to the room.

Bobby rubbed his bleary eyes as the boy unpacked his luggage on the other side of the room.

“Wha…who are you?”

“I could ask you the same,” the boy replied pompously.

He was tall and thin, but with a plump face and watery blue eyes. He was dressed immaculately, in tan trousers and light blue shirt that looked hideously expensive. He even wore a knitted cap, like he was desperate to play a round of golf or polo.

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“I’m Bobby.” He blinked stupidly as it dawned on him. “Oh, are you my roommate?”

“Looks that way, although I was here first. So technically, you’re my roommate.” The boy spoke in such a posh accent it was almost ludicrous. He made the other toffs at Dawnvel sound normal. He looked at Bobby in disapproval, as if he’d found a deeply unpleasant insect in his bedroom.

“I think I’d have noticed if you’d been here all this time. Unless you got here on the first week of term and then left?”

“That’s exactly what happened,” his newfound roommate replied, carefully laying a pair of thoroughly ironed socks on his bed. “The family and I had a skiing trip we couldn’t possibly cancel. But quite frankly after moving to this new school I needed the vacay.”

“After a week?”

“And what a terrible week it was.” He sighed, as if recalling a terrible tragedy.

“Won’t you get in trouble for missing school?” Bobby asked.

“Heaven’s no. My parents have become large sponsors of the academy. I’m as impervious as those wretched Perfect hoodlums. I’m Freddy Poppington by the way. I’ve no doubt you’ve heard the Poppington name before. Daddy’s practically a celebrity. They’ve done documentaries on the Poppington family dating back generations, don’t you know? We even got offered a reality show.

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The castle I live in is far superior to the abomination here. I’m only here for the supreme theatre programme Dawnvel offers. And because Cambridge…”

Bobby didn’t listen to the rest of Freddy’s monologue, distracted once more by the commotion outside. More police had turned up now, as well as a white tent to obscure whatever the crowd was surrounding.

Freddy sniffed imperiously and Bobby turned to see his roommate observing him. “You could be worse, I suppose. I’m not sure how, unless… you don’t have a disease do you?”

“What? No.”

“What about lice?” He peered at Bobby’s hair.

“Of course not. Why?”

“Well I assumed your tragic haircut had been done in a rush after you found it crawling with creatures.”

Bobby glanced dubiously at Freddy’s own ginger curls, which matched the mass quantity of freckles surrounding his button nose and slightly too-large mouth.

“Well, make sure you never snore, leave the toilet seat up, or take longer than ten minutes in the shower and we might be okay,” Freddy continued. “I demanded daddy pay the school a little more so I could have a room to myself, but the imbeciles wouldn’t accept the bribe.”

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Freddy looked back at Bobby, face wrinkling in disgust once more. “Judging by the atrocious state of your clothes I’m thinking your family didn’t pay.

Another wretched scholarship student. You lot are like rats.”

Anger boiled in Bobby’s gut. “I reckon daddy might have to pay more money soon.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“You’ll need plastic surgery after I rearrange your face.”

He sprang out of bed and smiled as Freddy scurried back, tripping on his own feet and colliding with the wall.

“Lay a finger on me and I’ll sue you so bad you’ll lose everything you have.”

“I don’t have anything.” Bobby grinned. “So sue away. Your daddy won’t get a penny, and the damage would’ve already been done.”

In truth, Bobby only wanted to scare him. He didn’t want to risk fighting again and getting thrown out like he had his last school.

“Ah, so you’re a thug as well as a lout, point taken,” Freddy eyed Bobby warily. “But I don’t wish to take a beating. I’ll try to refrain from insulting you.

They just kept coming to me, you see.”

Bobby shook his head. “Whatever mate. If you leave me alone, I’ll leave you.” He jerked his head toward the window. “What’s happening down there?”

“A student died mate.” Freddy grinned, the absolute opposite reaction any sane person would have.

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“No way. Who?”

“One of those Perfects. Guess they weren’t so Perfect after all, eh?”

He went cold all over. “Which one?” His mind immediately went to Simone, even though he barely knew her.

“Zander Murphy.”

Bobby dropped the phone in his hand, nausea creeping up his throat. It can’t be.

The creature from last night. He hadn’t considered telling a soul what he’d seen. Who could he tell that wouldn’t assume he was a raving lunatic? And now Zander, the guy he’d seen get rid of the thing, was dead. If Bobby told the police what he’d witnessed they’d assume he was playing a sick joke.

Had Zander really been murdered? Maybe the creature had returned in the few minutes Bobby hid beneath his window?

He still had to run away. This place was like the twilight zone. If Bobby stayed here another night it would probably be his last.

“Does anyone know how, or why?”

“Nope.” Freddy finished unpacking his bags and slid a much smaller rucksack under his bed, looking a little guilty, before moving swiftly on. “Just that a couple of girls who’d got up early this morning found his body lying there, right in the middle of the field. Now, I’m hungry. I probably shan’t see

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you until tonight. You and I don’t need to be chummy just because we share a room. Bye then.” And with that, Freddy left.

Bobby didn’t have time to wonder about how rude, and rather strange his roommate was, his anxiety overrode everything. He’d be freaked out if any student died, but it was very likely Zander had been murdered, and by something supernatural.

He considered telling Mo what he’d seen. He was a Perfect after all, he’d been friends with Zander. But would even Mo believe him? He’d likely think the same as anyone else, that Bobby was attempting a cruel prank.

After half an hour of sitting in shock, Bobby jumped again as a voice exploded out of the tannoys around campus.

“All students please gather in Dawnvel’s Greater Hall, at once.”

Bobby reminded himself along the way that the castle had two great halls, and the greater hall must be the bigger one as he fell into step behind the crowds of frantic students. Talk was of nothing but Zander as everyone climbed the hill and clustered into the medieval castle.

Headmistress Harkin and a handful of teachers were waiting to address them once everyone arrived. Bobby looked around for the Perfects, wanting to see Simone in particular, but there was no sign of them.

“The rumours Zander Murphy has been murdered are at this time, just rumours,” Headmistress Harkin began. The story she peddled was that Zander must’ve climbed the tree above where he’d been found and slipped, thus

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breaking his neck. Some of the students believed it, but most didn’t. Bobby didn’t blame them.

Harkin also told them classes were called off that day and left them with a stern warning about spreading rumours, not that it did much. Bobby hurried back through the castle and headed into town to buy a train ticket out of here, but the station had been shut down for unexpected maintenance. He was stuck.

Later that evening, news broke from the townspeople that the police had declared Zander’s death as suspicious, even getting ready to announce it as a murder investigation.

During dinner, everyone around Bobby were still speculating.

“I heard one of the other Perfects did Zander in and they’ve all been arrested,” said one student whose face was ninety percent nose.

“No way,” his friend argued. “They’re holed up in their house, mourning.”

“I heard it was a drug deal gone wrong,” said another girl. “We all know the Perfects are practically crime lords.”

“Or junior spies,” said another. “MI6 trains people to be secret agents as young as eleven now.”

“Both those suggestions are ridiculous,” a different pupil shouted.

Bobby was terrified to go to sleep that night. His fears grew worse as there was no sign of Freddy either. He jumped for the third time that day as Freddy suddenly strode through the door, two hours after curfew.

“Where’ve you been?”

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Freddy merely observed him like he was a mildly curious piece of mould.

“What I do is my business, not yours.”

He didn’t speak again and was soon fast asleep, snoring loudly. Bobby irritably pulled his own covers tight, afraid to fall asleep in case something else occurred. He repeatedly looked out of his window for signs of ghosts or Perfects, but saw neither.

Lessons resumed the next day, but the Perfects were still absent.

Bobby still planned to leave as soon as the trains were up and running again.

The orphanage would check up on him if they hadn’t contacted the school already. But Bobby couldn’t go back there, it had been a horrible place. He was sixteen now, and he’d always looked after himself anyway. Maybe it was time to leave education altogether. Away from shadowy monsters and weird students with weirder wands, or whatever that item was. What he would do from there, he had no idea.

Although they were absent, Bobby discovered many of the Perfects were in his classes when the teachers called their names in the register. He also passed their house, the students walking in front of him on the way to P.E cluing him in.

“Do you reckon they’re inside?” one girl asked her friend. “Or are they still down at the police station?”

The house was partially hidden behind a line of trees, practically inside the forest on the edge of campus itself. It resembled a home straight out of a gothic

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romance novel, like it would be owned by some rich Victorian noble, not a group of teenagers. It was three storeys’